DA Coty Wamp
The county’s opioid epidemic is District Attorney Coty Wamp’s new priority, now surpassing gang and violent crime, which she ran on last year.
DA Wamp announced at the North Chattanooga Chamber Council meeting Tuesday that she will hire a chief opioid prosecutor, a new item specified in the county’s budget effective July 1. The chief opioid prosecutor is the newest category of chief prosecutors since DA Wamp took office last September.
She said Hamilton County suffered 200 overdose deaths last year and 36 homicide deaths.
“Opioids should be the priority,” she said.
A Tennessee statute allows a person who sells or delivers illegal drugs to be charged with second-degree murder if the drugs result in death. But DA Wamp said the connection is very difficult to prove, usually requiring an eyewitness or cell phone records. A dedicated prosecutor with experience can follow that thread, she said.
“You’ve taken someone’s son from them. You’ve taken someone’s dad from them, and you’re going to answer accordingly,” she said.
DA Wamp said that Hamilton County reported 1,000 overdoses last year. Narcan opioid overdose treatment did save 70 or 80 percent of those, she said, but it won’t save everybody.
Narcan doesn’t work with fentanyl’s new competitor, the horse tranquilizer xylazine, she said.
STOLEN GUNS
DA Wamp is asking Chattanoogans not to leave their guns in their cars overnight. She said Hamilton County identified 486 stolen guns that had been “floating around” the county last year, and 80 percent of them were stolen from cars.
“We are asking that you take it inside,” she said. Most are taken at night from cars parked in driveways or apartment building parking lots, she said.
Laws that restrict gun sales “are not really going to mean anything in a county like ours,” she said.
Tennessee passed the “Constitutional Carry” law in 2021, classifying gun theft or possession of a stolen gun as a felony that carries a minimum of 180 days in prison.
“That’s a form of gun control,” DA Wamp said.
She said gun owners who report a stolen gun to police cannot be prosecuted.
OTHER CHIEF PROSECUTORS
In the last year DA Wamp has also named chief prosecutors for homicide, gang and violent crimes and child sex crimes to build keener experience and convict offenders.
She said she has asked Chief Homicide Prosecutor Paul Moyle to help resolve backlogged cases and identify languishing cases to move them along.
Chief Gang and Violent Crime Prosecutor Austin Scofield is keeping tabs on about 70 “most dangerous” people in Hamilton County who have a past in illegal drugs, guns and robberies. She has asked him to flag them and try them accordingly if they come through the system for petty crimes.
Chief Prosecutor Stephanie Brown will handle a current case involving a first-grade teacher at Wallace A. Smith Elementary School indicted for inappropriate behavior. DA Wamp said sex predator cases take time, and a dedicated prosecutor knows how to question a child on the stand and how to communicate with the family.
“There is nothing worse than the rape of a child,” DA Wamp said. “It’s a sickness and you cannot be rehabilitated,” she said.
DA Wamp said she is one of only five women serving as district attorney in Tennessee’s 32 districts, “which is a sad state, in my opinion,” she said.
She added that none of the 32 are racial minorities and that, at 34 years old, she is the youngest district attorney in the state by four or five years.
“I think we can still do better,” she said.
“I think we need younger leadership across all areas of government,” she said.